Moving from California to Iowa has been an adjustment for Morningside student Iggy Estupinan. Since the weather has gotten even a little colder than the much warmer weather she’s used to from California it’s been way colder to her than those at least semi used to colder weather. Iggy even complained about losing her tan from the lack of sun saying that she “feels like a ghost”.

The move for college might have been for Iggy’s twin sister Leah coming to Morningside with her. The pair share a room and definitely maintain the sister dynamic of sisterly love and all the getting on each other’s nerves. But the dynamic does not just exist between Iggy and Leah, they’re showing their little cousin the ropes of having sisters.Her little cousin comes from a family of all boys, but now lives with Iggy’s mom after her mom adopted the five of them making them a family of 11.

The adjustment to living in the Midwest has been the biggest thing though more so than missing the craziness of a large Hispanic family. From the weather to the food and stores everything feels different from California.

One of the biggest things has to be the dramatic change in weather. Iggy and Leah both consider even the slightest amount of snow actual snow which is a definite indicator of them being used to warmer weather. Being a Californian means being used to considerably warm, dry weather with 50 degrees being dreadfully cold, and being able to wear summer outfits year round. Whereas in the Midwest the weather is significantly cooler, and there is not nearly as much sun.

Additionally, the food choices in California are different from the Midwest. In California there is an abundance of healthy food options, great Hispanic food, and the iconic In-N-Out Burger. While in the Midwest you get the iconic home-style dishes among other foods that one doesn’t hear of until you travel to the Midwest.

Moving from California to Iowa has been an adjustment for Morningside student Iggy Estupinan. Since the weather has gotten even a little colder than the much warmer weather she’s used to from California it’s been way colder to her than those at least semi used to colder weather. Iggy even complained about losing her tan from the lack of sun saying that she “feels like a ghost”.

The move for college might have been for Iggy’s twin sister Leah coming to Morningside with her. The pair share a room and definitely maintain the sister dynamic of sisterly love and all the getting on each other’s nerves. But the dynamic does not just exist between Iggy and Leah, they’re showing their little cousin the ropes of having sisters.

Her little cousin comes from a family of all boys, but now lives with Iggy’s mom after her mom adopted the five of them making them a family of 11.

Peer editing sessions can be the worst experience because either the paper gets torn to shreds by the other person or they have no valuable feedback to give. And Mari Pizzini completely agrees with this.

In her junior year of high school she took it upon herself to edit a paper for her AP Lang class. She hunkered down in her coach’s office with 5 different colored highlighters and 4 pens and set to work on her paper.

From 5pm to 9pm she edited her paper crossing things out, writing comments, basically checking for any and all mistakes. It even ran onto two additional sheets of paper.

Her coach after seeing what Pizzini had done to her own paper said, “You can’t even write a second draft because you can’t see what you wrote.” That says something about the lengths Pizzini went to edit her draft.

While it may not outwardly show Mari Pizzini is a perfectionist. But the kind that mostly applies to her class work.

Chaos seems to reign in Wal-Marts during the day, but in smaller amounts during the nights when I prefer to make trips.

During the days Wal-Marts are busy oh so busy and loud. The crowd during the day is that of families and older people as opposed to the nighttime crowd, if it can even be called a crowd, mostly being college aged people. The noise of people talking is constant, and faint cries of babies or children not getting what they want are occasionally heard from across the store.

The busiest section of the store seemed to be the grocery section the aisles difficult to get through with inconveniently placed carts and people standing in the way looking for items on their grocery list. Sights like misplaced food items, toys, clothes, and other miscellaneous items seem more prominent during the day because of the larger crowd.

The one redeeming aspect of the trip was at check out. My friends and I used the self check out as usual, and as we were checking out an older woman who was an employee came up to us simply to tell us a pun which led to an exchange of puns between the sweet old lady and my friend who has an arsenal of puns on hand at all times. It made the trip almost worth it.

Promoting awareness and providing a safe place for it’s LGBTQ students is Morningside’s own Gay Straight Alliance.

The goal of Morningside’s GSA is to provide a safe environment for LGBTQ students as well as spread awareness about the LGBTQ community. GSA is also a great opportunity for students to make friends.

GSA meets every other Sunday at 2 in the student center. Each meeting has a set activity such as Cards Against Humanity, Taboo, and Uno.

Story 2:

Danica Roem thrash metal singer and now the first transgender elected official in the United States makes a historic win for the LGBTQ community.

Roem, a trans woman, won a seat on the Virginia State Legislature previously held by self-declared “chief homophobe” Robert Marshall. He held the seat for 14 consecutive years and attempted to pass a bathroom bill that would have negatively affected transgender students had it passed.

Her success comes from making the focus of the campaign on public policy, and not just her gender identity. Roem dedicates her victory to members of the community who those who have been singled out or treated as misfits.

Story 3:

Congress isn’t the only thing standing in the way of President Trump’s border wall plan.

Cards Against Humanity has launched a new promotion called Cards Against Humanity Saves America. The promotion promises 6 surprise gifts for 15 dollars.

In addition to the gifts Cards Against humanity has bought a vacant plot of land along the border of Mexico. The people behind the card game have teamed up with a law firm to make sure that purchasing the land would be as time consuming and expensive as possible.

Morningside’s GSA is an important club for those who don’t fit into the societal norms when it comes to gender and sexuality. But also a place for allies of the LGBT+ community or those who want to learn more.

The goal of the club is to provide a supportive environment for LGBT+ students, and to spread awareness of LGBT+ people and their concerns. In addition, students can voice their own personal concerns and be themselves without concern because what is shared stays within the group.

Within the group, the gender identities and orientations of the members are respected. At the first meeting, everyone went around the group talking about who they were, something interesting about themselves, and what their preferred pronouns are.

Rebekah Mayer and Matthew Gardner, the students who are in charge of the group, say that they hope to create a “place where other student’s feel safe to be themselves” regardless of gender identity or orientation.

Those who are curious about the LGBT+ community are welcomed too. Through the club it is possible for them to gain a better understanding of the community even if they’re straight or identify within the gender binary.

GSA meets every other Sunday at 2pm in the student center. At each meeting there is a set activity, and suggestions for future activities are welcomed. So far the activities have been playing Cards Against Humanity, Uno, Pictionary , and Mad Libs.

Emma Watson talks about the struggles she and other activists face while promoting gender equality at yesterdays One Young World summit.

Watson’s speech was empowering and emotional. The speech touched on her own struggles after launching her HeforShe campaign which advocates for gender equality, and how she found a community of activists that helped her.

Watson describes her own experiences as not being “about being an activist; it was about the choice to make [herself] visible.”

In advocating for gender equality Watson has experienced “a level of critique” of the likes she has not experienced before because she has in becoming an activist made herself visible. But with the community, or tribe as she calls it, Watson has been able to continue on with her efforts to achieve gender equality.

The audience to which Watson had been speaking to were activists like herself fighting for their own causes. Activists all gathered together for the One Young World summit that bring together people representing a variety of causes and to award young activists for their efforts.

Watson emphasized the sense of community when she said, “One Young World isn’t about saying what I, each of us individually, can do, but what we can do, working together, supporting and listening to each other.”

The One Young World organization stands for just this trying to bring activists together to make a real difference in the world. The goal is to bring activists together to make lasting connections and share their experiences in trying to make changes to issues such as gender equality, climate change, global health, hunger relief, transparency in business and government, and other pressing issues.

This week I’m doing my news comment on a Vice article titled “Republicans Want to Make It Harder for You to Pay Off Student Loans” by Harry Cheadle. This story is newsworthy because of the impact that the new tax plan would have for Americans with student loans among other Americans, and it would eliminate tax cuts that help Americans who rely on these tax cuts to help them out. Also conflict because the GOP tax plan is bound to cause conflict because the plan would hurt more people than it would help.

This week I decided to do my news comment on “Inside the Brilliant Minds Behind the New Season of ‘Stranger Things’” by Charles Moss on Vice. The story is newsworthy because of timeliness and currency. Because the highly anticipated Stranger Things 2 is set to premire on Netflix tomorrow this story is relevant especially to fans of the first installment of the series it is a newsworthy story to cover. It also becomes newsworthy because Stranger Things is trending again because of the next installment.

In Psychology Today’s June 2017 issue they say that researchers have discovered that gut bacteria could be linked to psychiatric disorders. Scientists find that bacteria in the gut sends neural signals to the brain that have effects on mood and cognition.

Antibiotics, a bad diet, and stress has been shown to disrupt the composition of the bacteria in the gut and change the function of the gut. Gut-bacteria shifts activate immune cells which cause inflammation in the brain that leads to psychiatric symptoms.

Regular use of probiotics restores the bacterial balance of the gut and boosts learning and memory fucntions in the brain. Researchers have been studying the use of probiotics to improve psychiatric disorders.